This commentary is by Walt Amses, a writer who lives in North Calais.
Vladimir Putin doesn’t appear to realize the masculinity he so desperately seeks is unavailable to topless equestrians galloping across the Siberian steppes in silly photo ops.
Ignorant of the world, surrounded by trembling yes men, the would-be czar regularly puts his macho on the line in transparently staged events designed to demonstrate his toughness.
Keeping a straight face is his biggest accomplishment as judo opponents fall limply into his arms, hockey defensemen part like the Red Sea, and circus bears, their dancing done, remain chained to trees, waiting to be shot.
However toxic, it’s easy to understand Russia’s longstanding version of masculinity, dating back to the Romanov dynasty at the beginning of the Imperial era, but in the early 19th century Tsar Nicholas l implanted this notion of manhood in educational systems, values actually enforced by the state.
The Bolshevik Revolution changed the country in 1917, but “enforcement of masculinity remained consistent,” according to Rebecca Friedman, founding director of the Wolfsonian Public Humanities Lab at Florida International University.
While Putin’s embrace of hyper-masculinity has roots in the USSR, the execution of this perversity in the savage invasion of neighboring Ukraine has brought near-universal condemnation, save a few far-right ideologues like Tucker Carlson, whose Fox broadcasts have been picked up by Russian state media, providing grist for the Kremlin’s propaganda mill.
Although spin doctor Oleg Matveychev claimed, “There isn’t a single country in the world that is as easily manipulated as America,” thanks to a news and social media blackout many of his own countrymen have no idea why thousands of their soldiers are coming home in body bags.
And, given the paucity of accurate information, the alternative facts presented to Russian citizens fill the void with preposterous lies explaining the “special military operation” as a response to drugged neo-Nazis, “genocide,” U.S. biological weapons manufacturing, animals trained to carry pathogens across the border, and Ukrainians bombing their own cities, including women and children.
Putin has laid the groundwork for his lies for years but his grip on power is dependent on an entirely fictionalized account of the brutal incursion into Ukraine. To that end, as it quickly became obvious Russian troops were faring badly and the Ukrainian resistance was far stiffer than anticipated, new laws were enacted by the Kremlin, punishing “fake news” such as calling the war a “war” with up to 15 years in prison, forcing two stalwarts of independent media who gave voice to government opponents off the air entirely.
Murdering defenseless civilians and then cowering behind a government-imposed disinformation campaign is not the masculinity Putin would likely prefer, especially coupled with the emergence of a 44-year-old family man and former stand-up comedian being anointed the “Hero we need” and “A towering symbol of defiance in the face of … naked aggression.”
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has from the first explosion been the inspirational leader Putin could only dream about, celebrated the world over, rallying his country to fight back heroically against the brutal onslaught.
Again, writing in the Miami Herald, Rebecca Friedman: “This, from one perspective, is a battle between two competing masculinities … the mighty, bare-chested Putin, whose hyper-masculine strength is being challenged, and the kind, gentle protector, Zelenskyy. Putin’s hyper-masculine impulses continue to motivate him and he is famously outraged at the notion that he will be backed into a corner.”
Outrage notwithstanding, Putin appears to have landed in that corner anyway, for which he has no one but himself to blame, but speculation remains that as his frustration builds, he becomes even more dangerous. In a worst-case scenario, a pathologically enraged leader’s ground offensive grinds to a humiliating halt, and he turns to the biological, chemical or tactical nuclear weapons that would trigger a much larger, possibly world-war-level conflict.
Whatever role his toxic masculinity plays in this horror movie, the Russian president certainly deserves whatever vilification the world can dish out, but that same world might be due for a long, unflinching look in the mirror as well. Instead of wondering how this could happen, how Putin could expect to get away with this, we might ask why, when he was aligned with Bashar al-Assad in Syria, dropping barrel bombs on schools and hospitals, the now-outraged world chose to look on passively, refusing to intervene.
The bombardment of Grozny, the Chechen capital, prompted the International Federation for Human Rights to investigate Russian war crimes: destruction of towns and villages with no military significance; summary executions and murders; physical abuse and torture and arbitrary attacks, arrests and detentions of civilians.
Even the outpouring of support for Ukrainians across the globe and the sheltering of desperate refugees by an open-hearted Europe, however emotionally wrenching, deserve a fair amount of scrutiny as well, considering that same response was denied those displaced by previous conflicts from either the Muslim world or Africa, who were blocked at the border, rerouted to dangerous refugee camps or returned to the very violence motivating their long, arduous flight.
But again, like Grozny and Aleppo, the world goes about its business. No one wonders why. Perhaps because they already know.
Unwittingly summed up by Bulgarian Prime Minister Kiril Petrov in a skin-crawling statement, the reasons become clear: “These are not the refugees we are used to. They are Europeans, intelligent, educated people, some are IT programmers … not the usual refugee wave of people with an unknown past … No European country is afraid of them.”
While those displaced by Putin’s gutless barbarity should certainly be supported, the world’s patting itself on the back should be deferred until such generosity is no longer limited to those who share our complexion.
